Merry Christmas 2009

A few weeks ago, I tracked down  A Frightening Prospect, the creators of this powerful street poster that I saw on Houston Street last fall during the weeks surrounding the US Presidential elections.  Unfortunately I was driving too fast in rush hour traffic to stop or even take a picture of it.  These posters were really difficult to find on the streets, undoubtedly b/c they were such a hot item.  The artists kindly donated one to me, however, and I offered to have SLU buy another one for the Permanent Collection.

Brooklyn Street Art: list of artists + ANERA/anera

Wow.  I just came across the finest list of street artists on the Brooklyn Street Art blog.  This will be tremendously useful in identifying these li’l pranksters.  I saw Anera on there with a direct link to endlesslove.com, though no other mention of Anera once I got there.  When I looked up “Anera” on Google, I found ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid).  Just tried “Anera sticker” and found something called Stickerthrow! 2004 with Anera listed as one of the artists, tho no other link to this sticker artist.  This is the sticker I found in NYC, November 2004.

Time to begin research!

With a little time off from work, I can begin research on the Berlin stickers gathered in November.  My plan is to spread them all out (hundreds), sort them by subject, Xerox them (until they can be scanned and added to the database), and begin research in earnest.  Hot dog!!!!

Shepard Fairey

The NY Times ran this article in March 2009 about Shepard Fairey, which provides a useful bio and overview of this ne’er-do-well’s career.

B.N.E.

Check out this story about B.N.E in the NY Times today, forwarded by the tallest ninja in the sticker posse, Grant Cornwell.

From the article: “Peter F. Vallone Jr., of Queens, chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, condemned the show. ‘This isn’t even someone who’s decided to go legitimate,’ he said. ‘This is an unrepentant criminal who has cost honest taxpayers a lot of money, and he’s profited from it’.”  Sorry, Pete!!

B.N.E. uses a “serious-looking Helvetica Neue Condensed.”  I just watched the film Helvetica a few days ago, which describes the way the font was developed 50 years ago and how it has been used in a variety of social contexts.  One person said, “Helvetica is the perfume of the city.”  I guess B.N.E. is having  love affair with the urban environment.

What next?

“What next?” is right.  Hundreds of stickers to catalog.  Hundreds more to scan and catalog.  Since it is Thanksgiving break at school this week, perhaps kitty can take a little nap to reflect and refresh.

Single-mindedness

Stickerkitty joined a writing group for peer review and discussion.  Not sure if she can run with the big dogs, or even if she wants to.  But, it’s not good to swat at the paw that feeds you.

We’ll give it a go and keep you posted from B-e-r-l-i-n-!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am dreaming about stickers every night.  It’s wild.  Sometimes it’s a sticker frenzy; sometimes there are obstacles along the way (like I’m getting run over by a subway train).  Last night I got lost in a scary neighborhood, trying to get to Kreuzburg, but ended up in some apocalyptic Terminator environment.

Found this online: “The aim of many forms of meditation is to reach single-mindedness.”

Urbanartcore.eu

From Berlin:

Urbanartcore.eu is a new independent street, design, urban art & photography blog. It’s the successor of the german street art blog Berlinpiraten.de and was launched on August 14th with an international photo-contest.

The Urbanartcore-team will be pleased to present you international news about urban activities, interventions, arts, design, photography and a lot more of fresh thing from the metropolises around the world.

Another goal of our blogs is to become a small, international authors-collective. So if you are familiar in urban areas and have some blogging experience, write us!

We like:
urban art, street art, graffiti, parkour, freerunning, photography, urban inspired design, typography, calligraphy, modern architecture, and a lot more topics around urban environment

We don’t like:
haters, fascists, buffers, sexism, spammers…we don’t want to talk about bad things

Stromausfall

I’ve had this sticker on my desk for weeks, and only today did I put 2+2 together to see what is being represented: guys (I assume) in hoodies.  All of a sudden, I realized they look like some of the punks I see on other antifa stickers.  I found the translation for stromausfall to be “blackout.”  Major DUH on my part, but the sticker is superb.  (It is especially Duh since the reproduction here below is so obvious!)  Oh well. 

Update

WordPress is acting up.  Two minutes ago, I can’t type.  Now I can.

I’m overwhelmed by how much work I need to do with the Posse database and Stickerkitty blog.  Lately, I’ve been wondering what will be my Life’s Oeuvre (har-de-har) and alas, it sure won’t be Guernica.  Aside from my super-fantastic job at SLU, which I L-O-V-E, it will be the Posse digital collection.  As far as I can tell, it is unique.  Yay.